


in sickness

by vlieger



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-07
Updated: 2012-08-07
Packaged: 2017-11-11 15:44:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/480153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vlieger/pseuds/vlieger





	in sickness

"You're at my house," said Mike, sneezing. 

Harvey raised his eyebrows, grimacing. "Don't ever state the obvious in front of a client," he said. "It makes you look like an imbecile."

"Right," said Mike. "Thanks. I'm doing fine, by the way."

"Shut up," said Harvey, stepping inside. "Here." He pushed a warm Styrofoam cup into Mike's hands without ceremony and peered with aloof disinterest around Mike's place.

"Soup?" said Mike, with impressive incredulity considering he dissolved into a hacking fit of coughs approximately point five of a second later. "Seriously?"

Harvey stepped back delicately. "Look," he said. "Jessica's thrown another pro bono on me, and I still have the Webster merger to focus on. I need you healthy. Soup is healthy. Ergo, soup."

"Soup is healthy?" said Mike, clearing his throat and peering dubiously into the cup. "Where did you learn that, teenage soap operas and second-rate rom-coms?"

"I don't think you're in much of a position to be commenting on my practices when it's your own that got you into this mess in the first place," said Harvey. "Not that you're in a position to be commenting on my practices anyway."

"...What?" said Mike, blinking. The cold meds were kind of fog-inducing. 

Harvey rolled his eyes. "First bed bugs, now this. I didn't hire you just so you could kill me with your ridiculous insistence on caring."

"You're the one who keeps throwing pro-bonos on me," said Mike. "Maybe you should take one, show me how it's done."

"Nice try, rookie," said Harvey. "Eat your soup. I'm going back to the office. If you're not back tomorrow I'm assigning you to the copy room for the next week."

"I thought you needed me back to do actual work," said Mike. 

"Nothing I can't redistribute," said Harvey. 

"You're a great motivator, has anyone ever told you that?" said Mike, dripping sarcasm and possibly other questionable flu-related substances. 

"I didn't get where I am because people went easy on me," said Harvey, snapping the door closed just as Mike opened his mouth to retort.

 

"Are you _still_ sick?" was the sympathetic greeting Mike was met with when he answered the door the following day. He made it sound like Mike's continued convalescence was a personal affront devised by Mike just to inconvenience the great Harvey Specter. 

"No," said Mike, sniffing pointedly. "I'm just trying to see how many days I can get away with before you figure it out. You've exceeded expectations."

"It's doing wonders for your charm," said Harvey dryly. "What did I say about the copy room?"

"What did I say about this _not being my fault?_ " said Mike, dropping heavily onto the couch. 

Standing and arguing at the same time was too much for him right now, and obviously arguing was more important. 

"I disproved that yesterday," said Harvey. "Keep up, rookie."

"Right, sorry, caring equals bad, feelings are poison," said Mike, rolling his eyes.

"Exactly," said Harvey. 

"What are you doing here again?" said Mike. 

"Protecting my investment," said Harvey.

"No soup today?" said Mike.

Harvey threw a packet of throat lozenges onto his lap.

Mike blinked down at them, then up at Harvey.

"Don't tell me I have to help you administer them too," said Harvey, straightening his jacket and turning towards the door. "Copy room, two weeks if you're not back tomorrow."

"You suck at not caring!" shouted Mike through the closed door. 

"Protecting my investment!" Harvey shouted back, almost drowned out by Mike's coughing. 

 

"Three days?" said Harvey. "Do I need to call an ambulance?"

"Ugh," said Mike, burrowing back into the couch. What he really meant was _Go away, I'm dying_ , but his throat hurt and Harvey was smart enough to figure out the nuances. 

Or so he kept saying. 

The next time he ventured to open his eyes Harvey was standing by the couch, blinking down at him and looking kind of constipated. 

"What?" said Mike, at the same time Harvey said, "Are you-- "

They both stopped. 

Harvey rolled his eyes. "It's disgusting in here," he said, moving to the windows. "You need some air." He tugged open the nearest window, frowning at its arthritic creak.

"Should I be expecting three weeks in the copy room if I'm not back tomorrow?" said Mike when Harvey moved back into view. 

"You should be expecting every pro bono case that's come to the firm while you've been gone," said Harvey threateningly. 

It wasn't until after he left that Mike realised it may have been his sucky attempt at being magnanimous.

 

"Here," said Harvey, throwing a stack of files down onto the table. "This is getting ridiculous."

"Harvey," said Mike, crawling into some semblance of upright from his cocoon of blankets, "I know it's been four days and I know I have a lot of work to catch up on, but if you just let me _get better_ I promise I'll put in as many straight hours it takes to get it done."

"I know," said Harvey. 

Mike rolled his eyes. "So you can't just sit down for an hour and wait for it to happen," he said. 

Harvey scoffed. "Please. I have much more important things to do."

"Of course you do," said Mike. 

Harvey nodded, looking like he thought the sarcasm was totally unwarranted. "Sanitise those before you give them back to me," he said, jerking his head at the files. 

Mike saluted lazily. 

Harvey stopped halfway to the door. "If you-- " He cut himself off. 

"If I what?" said Mike. 

"Nothing," said Harvey. "Files. Work. Get them done. Get better. Get back into the office."

 

"It has now," said Harvey, making a show of checking his obnoxiously expensive-looking watch, "Officially been a week. Which means I'm officially chalking up a point to not caring."

"You know what," said Mike, turning away and flinging himself back onto the couch, "I don't care. So there, you win. Just go away and leave me here to die."

Harvey rolled his eyes. "You look deplorable," he said, folding his arms and fixing Mike with a steel-eyed stare, like he thought that was going to scare away the germs. 

"Thanks," said Mike miserably, although not without a lick of sarcasm. 

Harvey sighed long-sufferingly. "Donna's arranged for her doctor to check up on you tomorrow."

Mike blinked. "Donna?" he said, looking up at Harvey. 

"Yes, Donna," said Harvey. "What, you think I have her around just for show?"

"I wouldn't be surprised," said Mike. "Although no, then you'd have to actually do the work, so."

"Stop talking," said Harvey imperiously. "Delirium is clearly self-incriminating. There must be something about that in the Fifth Amendment."

"There isn't," said Mike, coughing. 

Harvey rolled his eyes in a way Mike interpreted as a scathing _I know_ , but said nothing.

Mike opened his mouth to retort to Harvey's silent response but blanched instead, said, "I'm gonna," and reached for the precautionary bucket by the couch. 

Harvey grimaced, stepping back as far as he could without actually climbing onto the coffee table while Mike finished retching. 

"If I go to my meeting with Lloyd Webster are you going to die in pile of your own filth?" he said. 

"Tell him he only needs one dissenting vote to put the merger on hold," said Mike into the bucket. 

"The majority-- "

"Doesn't count if the issue affects more than two hundred million of the company's equity. If he wants it to go ahead he needs the entire board to agree or he's signing a contract under false pretenses. It's buried in the by-laws. No one knew about it because no one expected the business to explode overnight."

"And you discovered this when, between throwing up and tripping out on flu meds?" Harvey raised an eyebrow. 

"Who cares, it's true," said Mike, breathing deeply and lifting his head. "Look it up." He stared in challenge. 

Harvey stared back. "I believe you," he said at last. "I'm going to the meeting now. And remember I hired you so I _wouldn't_ be stuck with another useless Harvard graduate under the perpetual delusion that they're smarter than me, so. Try not to champion any disease-carrying charities in the meantime."

"Oh, well, in that case, could you hand me my phone, I need to cancel my weekly meeting with the needle-sharing society of New York."

"Are you really so compulsively contradictory?" said Harvey, checking his phone and moving to leave.

"No," said Mike.

Harvey almost smiled. 

Mike ducked his head to retch into the bucket again. Harvey paused, then dropped a stilted pat onto his head in parting and turned towards the door.

Mike looked up in time to watch him leave, blinking, head spinning and wondering vaguely whether or not Harvey just implied that Mike was smarter than him.

Probably not. Mike flopped back onto the couch with a sigh.

 

The weekend was kind of a blur. The doctor came, of which Mike remembered a snatch of conversation and a kind of insanely huge, by comparison, snap decision--

"So you're Donna's doctor?" said Mike conversationally while the doctor poked at his glands. 

"Donna?" said the doctor, "Oh, the girl on the phone, yeah. I'm Donna's doctor."

Which Mike took to mean _No, I'm actually Harvey's doctor and Harvey Specter is a lying liar who lies_. He really was getting much better at this whole reading people thing. 

\-- and the rest was a haze of meds and sleeping and actually finally fucking getting better. 

 

"You're not sick," said Harvey accusingly on Monday, raking his eyes over Mike. 

"You're here," said Mike. 

"So are you," said Harvey. "And yet you're not sick, which means you have no business being here instead of at the office."

"Do you really want me to turn that one around on you?" said Mike. 

Harvey glared at him, unamused and unimpressed. "Are you threatening me, rookie?" he said silkily. Mike opened his mouth, presumably to say _No_ \-- he really needed to work on following through-- but Harvey continued. "So then please, tell me why we're both here instead of doing what I get paid and what I pay you to do."

"Oh," said Mike. "Yeah, right." He kissed Harvey. 

"Okay," said Harvey when Mike pulled back, " _What_ \-- " 

"You kind of suck at being comforting," said Mike, "But it's cute that you tried."

Harvey looked politely outraged, eyebrows raised and mouth curling deceptively upwards, which Mike knew was one of his most dangerous expressions. 

He was also pretty sure he knew when Harvey was bluffing. 

"I know, I know," he said anyway, feeling supremely generous and also kind of terrified, like his first time in court but _more_ , that thrill of danger, of the possible consequences, "Protecting your investment, I was just kidding," and kissed Harvey again to stop him commenting or, you know, firing Mike. Or killing him. Whatever. 

Harvey said, "Nice try, rookie," against his mouth, and then finally, _finally_ kissed him back, splaying a wide warm hand over his jaw and pushing him back against the wall. 

Mike smiled. One-upping Harvey was kind of impossible, if only because of that ridiculous ego, that oh so satisfied smile.

Besides, he liked that Harvey was the only person he knew who could one-up you by being one-upped. 

He was still the most dangerous thing Mike had ever wanted. He moved lithe, predatory, sliding his hands over Mike like some sleek jungle cat stalking its prey. Mesmerising. He was also impossibly human, grunting uncomfortably when Mike wedged a bony knee too hard into the inside of his thigh and popping three buttons when Mike's shirt wouldn't undo fast enough.

"I thought suits were the holy staple of all existence," said Mike breathlessly. Harvey's hands were precise and bruising on his hips and he arched into it, wanting more. 

"I'll buy you another one," said Harvey. "It's quiet time now."


End file.
